A viral video clip from the conservative commentary channel “Scoops & Friends” has reignited long-standing controversies surrounding U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) path to American citizenship, accusing her family of misrepresenting their status as refugees from Somalia’s brutal Siad Barre regime.
The 45-second animation, shared widely on X (formerly Twitter) in recent weeks, claims Omar’s father, the late Nur Omar Mohamed, served as a colonel in the Somali army and helped orchestrate atrocities before fleeing accountability rather than oppression. The post has amassed thousands of views and fueled calls for an investigation into whether Omar’s 1995 asylum application involved fraudulent testimony.The video’s narrator states verbatim: “Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s family was part of the Siad Barre regime. Her father was a colonel in the Somali army. The Siad Barre regime was responsible for the genocide of over 100,000 Somalis. They fled the country not because they were victims of oppression, but because they were fleeing justice for their war crimes. Ilhan Omar’s family was part of the oppressive regime that committed these atrocities. Yet, she came to America as a refugee, claiming to be a victim of the very regime her family helped run. This is the truth about Ilhan Omar’s refugee status.”
Omar, now 43 and serving her fourth term representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, has long described her family’s escape from Somalia’s 1991 civil war as a desperate flight from violence that upended their middle-class life in Mogadishu.
In her 2020 memoir This Is What America Looks Like, she recounts spending four years in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp with her father, siblings, and extended family before resettling in Virginia and later Minneapolis. “We fled not just bombs and bullets, but the collapse of everything we knew,” Omar wrote, emphasizing her father’s role as an “educator” who instilled democratic values in their household despite the the chaos.
However, the video’s allegations draw on documented aspects of Nur Omar Mohamed’s career that Omar’s office has not disputed. Mohamed, who died of COVID-19 in 2020, rose to the rank of colonel in the Somali National Army under Barre, a U.S.-backed Marxist-Leninist dictator who seized power in a 1969 coup and ruled until his ouster amid famine and clan-based insurgencies. He commanded a regiment during the 1977-78 Ogaden War against Ethiopia and later worked as a “teacher trainer,” a role critics describe as ideological indoctrination to propagate Barre’s hybrid socialist-Islamist doctrine.
Barre’s regime, which blended Qur’anic principles with influences from Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Mussolini, earned infamy for human rights abuses, including the Isaaq Genocide of 1987-89. U.N. investigators later concluded the campaign systematically killed up to 200,000 Isaaq civilians in northern Somalia (now Somaliland) through aerial bombings, mass executions, and forced relocations, displacing over 500,000 more.
Mohamed’s Majeerteen clan initially allied with Barre, providing early support before facing crackdowns as rebellions spread. Omar’s maternal grandfather, a Benadiri civil servant, managed the country’s lighthouses, affording the family a “guarded compound” in Mogadishu—privileges that contrast with the widespread suffering under Barre.
The timing amplifies the stakes: With immigration a flashpoint post-2024 elections, Republican lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have echoed the video, tweeting, “Time to review every ‘refugee’ story—America deserves the truth.”
Advocacy groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned the surge as “targeted harassment,” while Somaliland activists demand U.S. recognition of the genocide, citing parallels to unaddressed historical injustices.
As calls grow for a congressional probe—potentially under the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee—the debate underscores deeper tensions over refugee vetting, clan loyalties, and America’s selective memory of Cold War alliances. Barre received U.S. aid until 1988 despite known abuses; today, his shadow tests the nation’s commitment to second chances. Omar, undeterred, continues advocating for progressive causes, from foreign aid to Gaza ceasefires. Whether this clip derails her remains an open question in a polarized Capitol.
https://x.com/deadend_king/status/1995946805109105084?t=Mxm0XjBEYUYvWtpU49ftvQ&s=19